Stuff

I even danced. And I never dance… A v.v. fun party last night and no mistake. Even spoke a fair amount of French which was pretty impressive considering the decibels. Fave bit: jumping around in the kitchen to Cafe Tacuba’s Ingrata with new found mates.

Today has been low-key, but all the same I just had a successful meeting about various sites’ progress and have another one in the offing for a herbal organic homeopathic remedy online store, which should prove interesting… On the way back from the office I saw Los Arcos (huge Tapatian monument) was open and went up the 80 odd stairs to have a gander at the city from above. It was free except for the 1 peso binocular machine things. I now understand where they’re hiding the 4 million odd inhabitants. I took a few photos with my PDA while listening to podcasts on it (that little gadget never ceases to amaze me). I’ve said it before but Gwod doesn’t feel like a city. Just wandering along today I met three people in the street that I knew.

So tonight we’re meeting up here for a few chelas (tinnies) before seeing what the centre has to offer. After the grito de dolores “Mexicanos, ¡viva México!” there’s another fiesta hosted by some Germans we’re going to crash if I have the stamina, as like I said, I’m on a pretty punishing schedule between designing stuff and socialising and I’m starting to feel my 31.666666666 years… More “news” as and when it happens.

And not for producing evil smiley ads.

Some of them even start screeching at you when you mouse over them these days. There must be a firefox extension to nuke them before they load…

Today’s been a pretty successful day of template adaptation for the design site. Still lots of bugs and things but I really feel I’m learning the ropes pretty well through experimentation and the odd quick google for ‘How in flipping hell do I get such and such a button in Flash to stop pissing around and do what I want’. here’s the before and (still heavily in progress) after. I’m told that Flash has come a long way in terms of accessibility but that’s something I’ll have to leave for later. Right now this would not pass for web design in the US or UK and would leave you ready to be sued. Just like Target. Also as pretty as the site is, it weighs in at 2 meg plus of download, which strikes me as somewhat de trop for the dial-up centric Mexican audience they’re going for. To get it indexed by search engines will be a nightmare. And it comes in all guns blazing with muzak which I’ve never been fond of. Even if you can choose which muzak you want at the bottom of the page. I’ll stick to HTML with the occasional flash element… even still the customer is always right. And I’ve got 3 Flash-based projects on the go.

Plans, you ask? Well, there’s meant to be a soiree tonight courtesy of Pocilga Beat, let’s see if that comes to summink. Always glad to meet new people in this sprawling metropolis. People are slowly adding themselves to the list for nocturnal boozing it up tomorrow in the streets and culminating with the cry of independance at 2am in the centre and fireworks and all that. My camera’s not too clever when it comes to night photos, but I’ll risk taking it in case I get another chance at a photo like this one:

So that’s tonight and tomorrow. Saturday, shall be a day of rest and web design. Sunday, if Javier is to be believed, shall be a Lucha Libre outing. Javier & a handful of Germans are watching an El Santo film, then heading off to the Coliseo and I’ve been asked along. I rarely plan 4 days ahead, but i hope that comes to fruition. La vida es buena.

I omitted to blog that lately my scrabble scores have gone through the floor, but that changed last night when I was on a roll. I finished watching The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) around 1am, then thought I could have a quick game before bed. One turned into 20 (these are 5 minutes a side games) and before I knew it the dawn was threatening to break and I realised I’d be knackered the next day. Also I’d slipped back to the wrong side of 1000. At least I’m not like the freaks who play scrabble first thing when they get up. I wait at least an hour… Anyroad, I took the opportunity to try and ring New Zealand where it was 8pm though, but Anne and Stu weren’t in…

So I’m a little fragile today and need a siesta of the highest order. Back to the film though, T3BOME was excellent. If I find myself with a spare moment I’ll rush off a review. 4.5 Lulus, I reckon…

Today: honing my Flash skillz on Intangible ready to do some template adapting for these peeps and that’ll be all before an early night. I’m thinking 8:30…

I think I remember this bloke as a kid drawing Paris buildings, he’s come a long way…

It reminds me of Borges‘ short story, Funes el Memorioso (spanish, english, english wikipedia entry). Borges’ fictional encounter with a man who is blessed/cursed with a memory that remembers everything in minute detail even the position of the clouds at a given moment.

Plans today: Redesign bloody agaveweb with me new corporate branding…
Explore the possibilities offered by this legally dubious web 2.0 website that appears to have everything, after a quick test with Senser, Black Box Recorder, Bomb the Bass and Art Brut…

First up is Pachola. Yesterday I was kindly invited round Ana’s again since she’s worried about the state of my diet. I’m pretty sure tacos fulfill most nutrition requirements. Lots of protein, salad in the form of cilantro and salsa, vitamin C in the lime, and, er… salt. Anyroad, Ana cooked Pacholas, made of minced beef and other bits and pieces and were delicious. They’re apparently a local dish hard to get in the rest of Mexico, although after a quick google, it looks like you can get them in Guanajuato too. Anyroad, put them on the list for things to try when you come and visit us/live here, peeps.

Second word: Espantasuegras. A compound word made up of Espantar – To frighten and Suegras, ‘mothers-in-law’. So it means Mother-in-law-scarer. Any ideas? I can’t for the life of me remember what they’re called in English. I’ll post an image in the comments on monday or tuesday. In the meantime, comment away suggestions for what an Espantasuegras might be. Your hint is that you’d find them at office christmas parties among other celebrations. Spanish speaking readers are welcome to join in. I’m buggered if I know what the word is. It’ll be bothering me for a few days… Righty I’m outta here…

Just checked my blog stats and read this:

(The Pentagon)
Date Time WebPage
7th September 2006 16:01:19 agaveweb.com/blog/
www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=eres lo que mas quiero eso eres

Nice to think they’re googling Spanish love songs in between ordering new weapons and planning invasions… Actually. No it’s not.

This just in…

Taunton wins the Tesco Cup for Britain South West in Bloom

Bet they don’t have any guava trees though…

Really extremely busy, and there’s tons going on this month so I really want to get as much done as possible as we enter September so I can make it to all the patriotic nonsense going on. Mexican flag sellers are back with their surplus stock from the World Cup and everyone’s got one on their house or car. Upcoming festivities include the city center becoming a night-long fiesta zone, paper balloon and martial arts demos in Ajijic and its Fiestas Patrias 2006, mariachithons… you name it. In fact I haven’t got time to be writing this post really…

Found out today after a bit of research what those weird smelling fruit in the garden are. For a while before the tree produced fruit I thought it was a pitaya tree. Then Ana came round and grabbed a bagfull of what turned out to be guayabas. Only today thanks to wikipedia did I find out that guayabas are guavas in English. Not that I’d ever tried one before. They taste vaguely like pears to me and I’m sure that since my prolonged absence from the british isles, they’re staples of every middle-class meal and 1 quid for a dozen in Morrisons. But they still seem exotic things to be growing in the garden. Our little agave’s coming along great guns too. 8 leaves. Eight!

And finally, I very much doubt that my neighbour, Seora Tere, reads me blog but none the less here’s a shout out to her because when I was leaving the house this morning she told me not to shut the door and bustled inside to get something. She said she’d seen me so many times waving newspapers and tin lids and blowing at the BBQ to get it glowing that she bought me a special barbecue fan thing. Which was splendid of her. Fair warms the cockles, so it does. Anyroad, behold, a hand-made mexican barbecue fan.

Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin dead.

I’ve been up since 6 as I was getting eaten alive by mozzies sheltering from the thunderstorm and hungry for European blood. I’ve got bites on me bites and a packed day ahead. My Spanish definitely suffers when I’ve not slept so I hope I don’t sound too foreign at various meetings today. It’s tricky formulating the subjunctive and describing OSCommerce admin when you barely have enough coordination to make a coffee and scratch your elbow at the same time without burning your hand…

Here’s another video unearthed from YouTube on Saturday. It’s by Mexico’s veteran indie band, Café Tacuba from their Cuatro Caminos album which Monica gave me for Xmas a few years ago. Gorgeous song, and lovely video. Enjoy! *DJ Voice* This one’s dedicated to me missus out there in LaLaLandia, California. Team O… *End of DJ Voice*

At the minute this link will take you to pix of me little sis and ali’s all legit marriage ceremony II. Sorry I couldn’t be there, looks like a good time had by all and the brides look stunning… FELICITACIONES to the pair of you.

If me Dad gets around to tagging his photos I’ll put a more permenant link up…

Not quite as many people turned up as planned, but all the more for me’n’jose… And there’s more than enough for an arrachera and salsa themed breakfast in half an hour or so… Did a fair amount of recording last night, am trying to find the best way to embed audio in PF’s Blog. Anyroad, as per usual the night descended into plumbing the depths of YouTube where I chanced upon this totally chingón video of Senser in their prime. All together now, check a check it out, check it out, check it check it out, bring it bring it on, bring on, come on, come on!

I met the band on a ferry coming back from France when I was 19 or 20 (12 years ago) and shared a few beers with the lot of them. Kerstin Haigh, the female vocalist had just shaved her head… And I can vouch that they’re all lovely folks.

CassetteIt’s early days (got the gig this morning) and no links work just yet but, check out Guadalajara’s new WaterJet webpage for all your titanium, kevlar and teflon cutting needs. I almost completely buggered up ordering the domain name. I spelt it wrong then had to call the help line to get them to change it to what I meant to put. They were great support, though, especially since it was my fault. Really. If you’re after hosting and domains, you could do a lot worse than Siteground.

Thanks, Roberta, for adding yerself to the guestmap. Can’t say I share your feelings about L.A. though, but to each their own…

Tonight, possibly pool. Possibly not. Depends how I get on with various projects… Thought I’d blog summink today just to reassure people about the Hurricane John non-event round these parts. All’s copacetic thanks for asking. And if it does rain, I’ve now rigged up a siphon/hosepipe system on the roof to stop it rotting through and attracting pondlife to the top floors of the house. Righty, back to the chamba (word of the week: Mexican Slang for work, from Chambear to work)

Problems with the server apparently. It’s not called the 3-dollar plan for nothing…

The photoshoot didn’t happen today, apparently El Mural has strict union rules or summink. So I’m redesigning agaveweb again, with a spanking new flash interface as practice for some flash work coming my way soonish. Right now I’m off to lunch courtesy of Ana again. Just a quick post to warn you about the intermittant service…

Cider is good for you (this week) according to the Somerset County Gazette, which, let’s admit it, is hardly Nature. This is the best YouTube has to offer on the Wurzels, Adge Cutler’ll be revolving in his grave:

So plans for the rest of the week:
Translate a huge gert technical manual for cell phones (I think) into espaol…
Start researching intangible.com.mx, which will feature pretty flash stuff and a foresty / brazilian colour scheme…
See how things are progressing round NuevaEra and shove some more photos up in the gallery…
Learn to use a kick-arse SLR Olympus camera before tomorrow morning to take photos at an agave tasting potentially for publication…
Wait on another potential gig modifying a Flash / OSCommerce template…
Find out when Guadalajara’s scrabble club meets. I remember seeing an ad in Ocio but it’s not there anymore.
and much, much more…

Update on the cable: They’ve still not disconnected it and somehow I don’t mind watching it so much if it’s free. Last night I enjoyed Gene Simmon’s School of Rock and The Surreal Life, despite the constant ads and interstitials. Pimp my Ride wasn’t that bad neither. Still when it’s gone it’s gone…

Just finished Gary Benchley- Rock Star which was harmless drivel. Something like a better adjusted 20-something American Adrian Mole. 3 Lulus…

For the last few days it was bothering me no end where this song was from:

I eventually worked it out by checking the source code of the blog I found it on. So what film do you reckon it’s from?

I reckon I barely, if ever, watch TV these days. Really just in the mornings with MTV or VH1 on just to see what LatinAmerican whippersnappers are listening to and to have some background noise. So today I bit the bullet and rang up MegaCable to cancel it. They wouldn’t let me do that over the phone so I had to go to the local branch in the rain to do it… Even then it’s not 100% easy, they asked why I was cancelling the service and I explained because I don’t watch TV, then they asked me to rate the service I’d received out of 10. Eight I said, feeling generous and thinking the questionnaire was over. The next question: What would Megacable have to do to make it a 10? I thought quickly and said well you say you offer 64 channels in the basic package, but one of them just seems to be some nonagenarian nun spouting religious nonsense 24-7 and that really shouldn’t count as one of the 64. Whether there was a box to tick for that or not, I’m not sure, but anyroad, to cut a short story shorter I’m now cableless and I’ve been home for nearly 7 minutes without wondering where Hulk Hogan will take his family next or whether Bonnaduce’s been Broken or not. YouTube, prepare yourself for some higher bandwidth charges…

Ana invited me over for lunch today, she’s a professor working with Sita on all manner of Agave/Tequila related issues so we had a lovely lunch and I got her blog up and running. Spanish-Speaking, Agave-lovers, click here… Next up is cast an eye over a proposal for a Jalisciense cultural activities/cinema type thing webpage and see if it’s doable, then off Chapultepec way to spread glad tidings in the Cala household. Cheers, me dears…

And possibly caffeine too… Anyroad, so as I mention above I didn’t sleep well last night again, whether it was Scrabble on the PDA whilst I half watched Clear and Present Danger or the afternoon coffee in Plaza Terranova or the book I’m reading that I don’t want to like but actually do, who knows? All I know is that after waking up with a mosquito in my ear far too many times I stumbled into the bathroom sprayed my head with repellent, shoved some earplugs in and put my head under the pillow and the persistant little bugger still kept coming at me. Enough of that… anyroad the lack of sleep and relative inaction today led me to to something to wake myself up a bit and that means getting the gee-tar out. I was recording stuff in Audacity then overdubbing and I thought, sod it, i’ll video it and sing and everything, and, though I’m regretting this already, here’s me YouTubed doing my battleworn rendition of Jarabe de Palo’s La Flaca, all about some slim young lady who boozes it up in La Habana without putting on the pounds… All mistakes in lyrics, pronunciation, chords and general appearence are entirely deliberate…

Available for weddings, quinceaeras, bah-mitvahs, etc… I’m here all week, folks…

Just got back from the cinema (I’m thinking of buying a frequent flier discount card for Cinepolis). Have a quick review of Mi Super Ex-Novia:

The high concept for this one is “Imagine your borderline psychotic ex had superpowers…” A sobering thought indeed. Anyroad, I was prepared to give it a chance as the director, Ivan Reitman, is responsible for one of the best films of all time, Ghostbusters. Turns out he’s also responsible for Kindergarten Cop and Ghostbusters II, but, generally, history will be kind to him, I feel.

Luke Wilson (the one with the normal nose) and Uma Thurman are the titular my and ex respectively. There’s no discernable chemistry between them and that’s fine because, as you’ll have worked out from the title, they’re destined to split up. Eddie Izzard puts in a passable turn as the baddie and the creepy bloke out of The (American) Office plays a creepy bloke who works in an office. Everyone, except Wanda Sykes, does a fine job and the results are an unspectacular but sporadically amusing romantic comedy. I reckon this’ll work fine on yer 19-inch telly in a few months time; it’s harmless fun for when you’re really not up for watching that Flight 93 DVD from Netflix that’s been sitting there for 3 months, and just fancy switching your brain off for a couple of hours while young Uma gallavants around in skimpy costumes.

(Out of a possible 5 Lulus…)